Once a ranger always a ranger

Chapter 57 the nightmares start & get worse

Jason then knew why I was pushing everyone away. "Look, I know that Tommy's death has been really hard on you. But you should stop pushing everyone away. It's just going to make things worse for you. We're all going through this too, and we're here to help." Jason said. "I know. And I appreciate that but it's just not helping right now." I said. "I understand." Jason said. I looked at my watch and saw that I have five minutes until my next class. "I have to get to class. I said as I got my stuff together and walked away. Jason knows how I'm feeling. Later that night I was having a nightmare. I woke up with a start. I was hyperventilating. I slowed down my breathing. "Man, what was that about?" I asked myself. I haven't had nightmares for years. I haven't had any since I was a little kid. I looked at my alarm clock and I saw that it was 3 o clock in the morning. I got up, grabbed my Jojo Siwa journal and a pencil, sat down on my bed, opened the journal to an empty page, and wrote down what happened in the nightmare. I went back to sleep after writing down what happened in the nightmare and the next one was a little more worse. It went on like that for a few nights, with each nightmare being worse than the last one. I kept it hidden from the others, including Kaitlyn. I know that she's my roommate but I just can't tell her what's going on. The next day we didn't have classes but I was avoiding everyone. I started to work on my tae-kwon-do patterns all the time in the gymnasium. I was working on a pattern called Yul Gok.

John was looking for me but couldn't find me. He ran into Virginia right outside the gymnasium. "Hey Virginia." John said. "Hey John, what's up?" Virginia asked. "Have you by any chance seen Ariel?" John asked. Virginia looked over at me and pointed at me. "She's right over there." Virginia said. "Thanks." John said before walking into the gymnasium. I was practicing Choong Moo when he walked up to me.

He never saw me train as hard as I am. "Ariel, chill out girl. I didn't come here to watch you wear yourself down." John said. I turned to face him. "I figured Mesagog's going to be too busy with his victory party to bother attacking Reefside anytime soon." I said. "Ariel, don't talk like that. It's been seven days (aka: a week) since we lost him. Do you think it's easy for us to go around and hear things like that? You may be able to block it out and pretend like it didn't happen but it did, and we have to cope with it." John said. "You don't understand, nobody does." I said. "Understand what? That you could've saved him?" John asked. "No... I should've gone with him." I said. "Listen, the funeral is on Friday. What happened to him wasn't your fault." John said. "Then why do I feel like it is?" I asked. "I don't know." John said. Later that day Conner, Kira, Ethan, and Trent came back to the college to be there full-time. Kaitlyn invited them into our room to talk about what I really don't want to talk about. "Guys, I'm worried about Ariel." Kaitlyn said. "Yeah, I never seen her like this before." John said. "Yeah. She's been acting weird lately." Kaitlyn said. "Has anyone thought about how Mesagog succeeded in one of his goals?" Kira asked. "There's no way Mesagog is going to go easy on us now that we're down a member. If anything, he's going to increase his forces because of it." Conner said. "Yeah, especially now that he thinks he's stronger than us." Ethan said. Later that night as I am sleeping I have a flashback instead of a nightmare. I was at the youth center with Tommy and we were talking. "You know, ever since the first day we met, not once have you stopped treating me like a sibling." Tommy said. "Everyone needs a friend. You know that." I said. "Yeah, I didn't want to say this in front of the others but I see you as a sister." Tommy said. After that part I woke up. I don't know why I had that flashback. "Is Tommy trying to contact me on a spiritual level? And if so, why now?" I asked myself. It was five o clock in the morning. I don't know why I'm waking up at these random times. I usually woke up at seven but now I'm waking up earlier than that. Our classes start at eight o clock. I leaned back against the headboard of my bed. Kaitlyn usually woke up at six on school days and she woke up at nine on the weekends. The nightmares started with the most common ways people die. Now it's at the most rare things that can cause someone's death. The next morning John came up to me at breakfast. "Hey Ariel." John said. "Hey." I said. "Oh, wow, you look terrible." John said. "Yeah, got no sleep last night." I said. "Wow." John said. "Yeah, plus, Kaitlyn says that I've been acting weird lately." I said. "If you don't mind me asking, why does it look like you haven't had a decent night's sleep in a few days?" John said. "Okay, I'll tell you. For the past few nights, I've been having nightmares. They're all about Tommy dying in various ways. At first, it was the most common ways. And now it's at the most rare ways. And every single one is worse than the last one." I said. "Sounds bad." John said. "You don't even know the half of it. I can't get a good night's sleep, or any sleep for that matter. And the nightmares don't help the situation." I said. The next morning I was writing a eulogy for Tommy. Kaitlyn came into the room after she hung out with a few friends. "Hey Ariel, how are you doing today?" Kaitlyn asked. "Tired." I said. "What are you writing?" Kaitlyn asked. "It's a eulogy for Tommy. Besides, he was more than our teammate, he was our friend." I said. "Actually, he was more like a brother to you than a friend." Kaitlyn said. "How do you know that?" I asked. "John told me that." Kaitlyn said. "I had a feeling that he would tell you that." I said. Then the others knocked on our dorm room door and Kaitlyn opened the door and asked them of they signed in. Everyone, except for Jason did. Jason called me out into the hallway. "What's going on?" I asked. "Have you been having any nightmares or something?" Jason asked. "Yeah, almost every single night. Why do you ask?" I asked. "I just wanted to know if you were having any." Jason said. "There's more to it. I just can't find out what it is." I said. "Are you going to be coming to his funeral?" Jason asked. "Yeah, I'll be there. In fact, I was just writing a eulogy for him." I said. "You seriously want to talk about him? You get nervous in front of people. I just think that you're not going to be able to do it." Jason said. "Look, I might look shy and soft-spoken on the surface but there's so much more than meets the eye under the surface.

You just don't see that." I said. "Alright, you can talk about him if you want. I'm just stating the obvious." Jason said. "Whatever." I said before walking back into the dorm room. They were still talking. "You know, Tommy died in the line of duty, as a power ranger." Trent said. "Yeah. I know." Kaitlyn said. "Well, I'm taking it the hardest." I said. "Yeah, we noticed." John said. I had tears starting to form in my eyes. "Guys, can you give me and Ariel some time alone?" Kaitlyn asked. "Actually, we're headed to the rec hall. You can come if you want." Conner said. "You guys go ahead and I'll catch up with you guys later." Kaitlyn said. They left and that's when I started to cry.